


An Albatross Around Your Neck, All The Things You've Said

by QueenTheatrics



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Abuse, During Canon, Gen, Pre-Canon, but things get sort of better!, charlie isnt evil hes just an arsehole, eggsy has a bad time, roxy & eggsy are the best of friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6480292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenTheatrics/pseuds/QueenTheatrics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy's mum is going to get a job and then everything will be alright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Albatross Around Your Neck, All The Things You've Said

**Author's Note:**

> Throughout there are brief mentions of dub-con/non-con situations, prostitution and abusive situations - definitely not graphic descriptions, just mentioned in passing.
> 
> I haven't written or published fanfiction in a very long time, never on this account, so please, be kind! :)
> 
> Also I've fucked about with the timeline a bit, just for the sheer hell of it.
> 
> (Title is from The Weight of Living, Part I by Bastille).

Eggsy’s mum is going to get a job and then everything will be alright. Eggsy’s mum is going to get a job and then the landlord will stop beating down their door, they can have three square meals a day, they’ll be able to afford gymnastics training again.  
Eggsy’s mum is going to get a job and then Eggsy won’t have to go to sleep at night, listening to her muffled sobs from the room across the hall.

That's the mantra he tells himself every night before he goes to sleep, every morning as he gets ready for school and his mum puts on her blazer and shirt - she calls them lucky, but Eggsy thinks Michelle has a different definition of luck than he does - to go to another futile interview. 

Eggsy's mum goes to get a job and comes out with a boyfriend and for a while, everything is alright. He goes back to gymnastics, he has lunch for the first time in months, he has shoes that aren’t two sizes too small. Eggsy thinks that maybe everything will be okay now, that maybe Dean will treat his mum right. Then Dean moves in and Eggsy knows he won't. 

Dean looks at Eggsy like he's something he's scraped off the bottom of his shoe. He calls him unspeakable names for still doing the gymnastics at age fourteen, says if he wants to pick up girls he can go to the pub. Then he looks Eggsy up and down, leering, and tells him if he wants to pick up boys, he can head on down to Smith Street. Eggsy ignores him.

When Eggsy is fifteen, he meets a boy at gymnastics with a smile that makes Eggsy's stomach do somersaults, and warmth spread to the tips of his fingers and toes. The boy pulls him into the equipment closet at the end of class and kisses him with the ghost of that winning smile still on his lips. They stay in the dark warmth of the closet for a long time, longer than they should, until the doors are flung open, light streaming in, and Dean literally drags Eggsy out of the closet by his ear, muttering the whole time.

(Eggsy tells Charlie and Roxy this part of the story, when it's still fun and light, and they can laugh at the wordplay. He doesn't tell them about how Dean's hands closed around his neck and squeezed his throat like a toothpaste tube, or how the bruises took weeks to fade but the scars never quite healed, or how he never set foot in the gymnastics hall again. He doesn't tell them how three days after that, Dean sent him on an errand and he found himself forced to his knees in a dark alley with a stranger's fingers scratching his scalp).

Just gone sixteen, Eggsy is nearly tall enough to look Dean in the eye. He pushes Dean a little, testing his boundaries, his limits, and Dean lets him at first. Then Eggsy spits _make me_ when Dean says _deliver this_ and Eggsy finds himself covering a black eye with his mum's concealer come morning. 

December that year, just before Christmas, Michelle gets appendicitis - Dean tells her it's _really fuckin inconvenient, Michelle_ as he drives her to A &E, and leaves as soon as he can. She comes home a day or two later, placed on bed rest and encouraged not to exert herself. Dean ignores this and goes in for a 'welcome home' shag as soon as she reaches the bedroom, and it makes Eggsy sick to hear his mum weep in pain for an hour after.  
The minute Dean comes out of the bedroom, Eggsy pleads with him to just leave her be, as close to begging as he'll ever get.  
"Fuck off," Dean spits, and Eggsy's stomach turns as the man gets close, the sickly chemical smell of aftershave tickling Eggsy's nose. He resists the urge to cough.  
"Do it to me, instead," Eggsy says, real quiet, and Dean raises an eyebrow. "Whatever you'd do to her, do to me. I won't fight back. Just leave her alone."  
A slow, sinister smile spreads across the other man's face.  
"Right then, Muggsy," he whispers in his ear. "Let's see what you've learned on Smith Street."

When Michelle is back on her feet, Dean shoves Eggsy aside, and Eggsy thinks that’ll be the last of it. Dean sends him on errands again, dropping off packages of God-knows-what to men with dark tombstone teeth and wandering hands. One guy, not much older than Eggsy himself, but with a face prematurely hollowed by drugs and the heavy weight of living, grabs at Eggsy’s crotch as he hands the package over, so Eggsy, in a fit of panic, drops the box at his feet and hightails it up the road without collecting payment. He takes his sweet time getting back home, dread sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach. As predicted, Dean is furious, and Eggsy receives a fist to the stomach and a broken wrist for his trouble. When Michelle gets home, Dean tells her the boy tripped coming up the stairs, and Eggsy can only nod.

If Eggsy thought that would be the end of it, he was sorely mistaken, because his next errand takes him down to Smith Street, where he hasn't been in two years. He hopes he's wrong, hopes beyond hope that the customer will hold out a hand for a package and be done with it and the location is just a sick coincidence, but one look at the guy, with his leering grin at Eggsy’s form, lets the boy know his suspicions were correct. 

The guy shoves a wad of twenties in Eggsy’s jacket pocket and turns him around by the shoulders. Eggsy presses his forehead against the rough wall, spreads his legs, and tries not to cry. 

Eggsy turns seventeen. His dad has been dead for ten years. 

Michelle persuades Dean to get Eggsy driving lessons for his birthday, on the promise that he can send him even further on errands to help expand his business (Dean tells Michelle that he deals in small household appliances. Eggsy knows better. Michelle doesn’t know the half of it). Dean pays for Eggsy to take one of those intensive courses, where he learns to drive and passes his test in the space of two weeks, and then he’s off, delivering Dean’s goods all over London and beyond. Every time he gets past city limits he considers just leaving, never going back to that awful flat and that awful man, but then his mum’s face flashes into his mind, and he knows he has to stay. Because the thing is, for all that Dean is good at making cash, he’s crap at keeping it, and more often than not, there’s too much month at the end of the money, and without Eggsy's pretty face to charm the landlord, they would have been put out on the streets long ago. 

Things stay pretty much the same for the next few years. Eggsy leaves high school with better grades than he'd thought, but not the grades he could have had in another life. Dean forces him to go full time with his various activities until Eggsy dislocates his shoulder one night down Smith Street, and Dean has to scale back his operations when the police start sniffing around. He confiscates the car keys, confines Eggsy to his room except for mealtimes and the occasional delivery run, and leaves bruises everywhere except on Eggsy’s face. So Eggsy joins the Royal Marines, and sees a light at the end of the tunnel. 

But fifteen weeks in, top of the class, he gets a phone-call from his mum who tells him, sobbing, that she’s pregnant. Eggsy’s heart falls through the floor. He packs up his stuff, tells his Commanding Officer he quits, and makes his way back home, where he finds his mother with five finger shaped bruises around the curve of her wrist. He tells himself he’ll never let anything happen to the baby, and he keeps his word. That becomes his new mantra, and he says it every night before he goes to sleep, until his world comes crashing down around his ears because of a goddamn fox, and a man in a double breasted suit whisks him away from the life he lived. 

Harry Hart throws Eggsy eyes closed head first into a new world - a world Eggsy didn't even know _existed_ , let alone one he could be part of. The people surrounding him are from a different planet altogether, one where an entire sterling silver cutlery set is shoved up their arses at birth, never mind just the spoon. Eggsy hears them say things like "I had the butler fetch the nanny" and "we had to loan out one of our tennis pitches so now we've only got _three"_ and it's like they're speaking Mandarin, for all he understands (a month later, he understands Mandarin. He still doesn't understand his dorm-mates). He pictures himself in one of their homes, a grand mansion with a hundred rooms with a hundred different uses, and a hundred more that no one knows the use for, sprawled on wingback chairs in clothes worth more than he'll make in a lifetime. He doesn't like the thought, so he puts it out his mind. He'll stick with his trainers. 

The first day of the trials is uneventful. In all honesty, it's just more paperwork than Eggsy has ever seen in his life. They fill in medical histories and personality quizzes and write a letter to their next of kin, should they die during the trials. They get blood tests and cholesterol tests and eye tests and STI tests. Eggsy is prodded and poked and asked the same questions over and over, and by the end of the day, he almost can't wait to go to bed. Almost. 

See, Eggsy has nightmares. It's not something he makes a big deal of, or mentions unless it comes up in conversation, but yeah, he has them. Every night. They're the kind of nightmares that a psychologist would have an absolute _field day_ with, full of deep, dark colours and hands that grasp at nothing, mysterious yet familiar figures that would make a therapist say _so tell me about your father_ in a meaningful tone of voice. He doesn't think to mention it to the others the first night because he doesn't think it'll be a problem; he usually snaps awake, comes down from the rush of panicked adrenaline, and then goes straight back to sleep, and it's a fairly quiet affair. So he doesn't mention it, because he doesn't think anyone will notice. He's wrong, of course. That night, after the water task, he comes awake with a strangled yell, drenched in sweat that chills him in the cool night air. Lights go on all around him and he sees ten pairs of eyes on him, most of them quietly judging. Roxy's eyes, shining in the lamplight, are unreadable, but she doesn't turn her back or mutter as she settles back down like everyone else does, and she whispers a 'goodnight, Eggsy' as she turns off her light.

Eggsy has never met anyone like Roxy. Roxy says delightfully scandalous things like "you know, Eggsy, I think today might be the day I change your mind about tube socks" and "if you've never been horse riding then why do you always walk like you've just been fucked?" On his bad days - and they all have bad days, even Charlie, who Eggsy is becoming increasingly convinced is a robot - she knows exactly what to say to make him laugh, or when to leave him to his wallowing from a respectful distance. 

Because the thing is - and its _barely_ a thing at all - is that Eggsy doesn't like to be touched. Growing up how he did, where a touch could mean a broken arm or another jaunt on Smith Street, means that sudden contact, unexpected touches, even the suggestion of a hand to his shoulder, are enough to elicit a visceral reaction from him that he can't always control. Roxy picks up on it half an hour after meeting him - they all do, because Charlie grabs him from behind and finds himself sprawled on the floor with a knee at his throat before he can blink - but Roxy's the one who respects his boundaries with care because, more often than not, his bad days come around when he's been caught off guard. She lets him initiate contact (and Eggsy's not averse to that, he just doesn't like the uncertainty), she warns him when she has to touch him (which is embarrassing as fuck during first aid training, when she's saying shit like "I have to place my hand on your upper thigh now" with a grave expression), she's even come up with a little cough which warns him when Rufus or Digby, the wankers, are about to come slap their greasy palms on his shoulder. Being around Roxy makes him feel secure for the first time in years.

\---

The first few weeks of the Kingsman trials pass at a snail's pace, and it seems like they're never going to end. Then all of a sudden, there are only six of them left: Roxy, who's great, Charlie, who's kind of an arsehole, but alright sometimes, and Rufus and Digby and whatever the fuck the other guy is called. 

The three of them - Charlie, Roxy and Eggsy - form a strange little crew. Eggsy isn't quite sure why Charlie's there, except he's quite nice to look at and sometimes he says things that make Eggsy laugh so hard he chokes on air. They talk about anything and everything, and it's nice to say things to real people that he'd only ever thought about in the safe darkness of his bedroom at night.  
Roxy talks about being asexual but still loving romance and flowers and holding hands with girls in the cinema. She tells them about her one girlfriend at university, an exchange student from France who had eyes like stardust and a bright, lopsided smile. Roxy insists she's over it, uses phrases like "amicable parting" and "it's better in the long run", but Eggsy can see a deep-seated sadness on her face. Charlie, after a pause, talks about being bi, about the one time he brought a guy home to dinner and the looks on his parent's faces that convinced him never to do it again. It's a rare moment of vulnerability for him, and he quickly covers it up with a joke and a Cheshire cat grin. They look at Eggsy when Charlie finishes, and he breathes in deep, scrubbing his hand over his face.  
"Fuck, I," Eggsy begins, and Roxy's lips quirk up in amusement. "You know what? I told Dean it was just a phase, after the closet thing, and that I was back on girls but..." He shakes his head. "Nah, definitely not a phase. Girls are amazing people’n all, but no one can blow you like a guy can." At that, Roxy snorts, and so does Charlie, but when Eggsy looks up at him, there's something intense and new in his sharp eyes. 

With just the three of them left, they start giving them real missions - bottom of the pile, low priority stuff that it doesn't matter if they fuck up, but real, proper, outdoor missions, nonetheless. They're given a new honeypot mission in a club in London, not far from where Eggsy lives. He's excited to show them all his old stomping grounds and takes particular glee in pointing out all the places he's been arrested. Roxy's nose crinkles with laughter and Charlie's lips press together disapprovingly, and for a moment, Eggsy can almost forget that he's competing against these people for a job at a spy agency, and instead pretend this, wandering about London with his friends, is his real life. He's on a high when they're called into the briefing room to receive their assignment, his arm slung around Roxy's shoulders and a grin on his face, and he's almost sure nothing could put a damper on his good mood. Then he sees the picture of their target in the file they're given and his mouth goes suddenly dry.  
"You alright, Eggsy?" Merlin says as Roxy and Charlie begin to discuss the target. Eggsy nods quickly, and though Merlin doesn't look convinced, he begins. "So, the target," he turns to the screen behind him, where a larger picture is projected. "Goes by the name John Smith. Not very original, but he's not very smart. Small time criminal - drugs, petty theft, owns a few properties in town so no doubt he extorts the tenants there, too. He's accidentally stumbled onto some pretty high level intelligence - the whereabouts of a far more dangerous drug lord who calls himself Vastro. Smith received the information by word of mouth, so that's how it has to be extracted. Though I wish it were that simple, you can't just steal his phone. One of you will need to talk to him. Discuss it between you."  
Through Merlin's speech, Roxy takes frantic notes on her clipboard. Eggsy sits stock still, gripping the arms of the chair with white-knuckled fingers. He can feel bile rising in stomach as he looks at the photograph on the screen. Trust his luck to run into this prick again. He manages to tear his eyes away and tune into the conversation next to him just in time to hear Charlie say, "Well, Roxy, looks like you'll need to do your best to entice Mr Smith," with a smirk. Eggsy shakes his head.  
"'Fraid not, Rox." He says, his voice hoarse. "Our Mr Smith prefers boys. The younger the better."  
"How do you know that?" Roxy says, sharply, just as Merlin whips around to look at him. "That's not in the file?"  
"Are you sure, lad?" Merlin adds, suspicion in his gaze.  
"He's me mum's landlord." Eggsy says. "Sometimes my mum couldn't pay her rent right away. I let him fuck me enough times for an extension, so I'm pretty damn sure. Not that I would ever tell her I did that." The tone he's going for is casual, but he completely misses casual and just kind of sounds like he might throw up at any point. Which is fairly appropriate as it's also how he feels. Roxy, the saint, doesn't try to touch him, just places her hand on the desk, palm up, and lets him make the decision to thread his fingers through hers. Charlie just looks shocked, and Merlin looks like he can't quite decide what his face should be doing. After a few seconds he schools his expression and tells them to get on with planning, but before they leave the briefing room he places a gentle hand in the air near Eggsy's chest.  
"Don't think we won't be discussing this later." He says, not unkindly, and Eggsy has to answer in the affirmative. Merlin lets him leave with a tight lipped smile and nod of the head. 

The mission is a success - it's ridiculously easy, actually. Once Smith gets a few drinks in him and a good look at Charlie's pretty face, he's pretty much willing to spill everything. Eggsy watches from the car, stomach churning every time he catches a glimpse of Smith's face. He's glad at the end of the night when Charlie hits the other man's head off the sink, leaving him unconscious on the floor and streaming blood from the wound. Though Eggsy can't decide if it was _completely_ necessary for Charlie to take such violent action, he can't deny that it was satisfying to witness. 

They get back to base just before midnight, and when he tells them all he's fine, they pretend to believe him. Even later that night, after he's taken a forty minute shower to scrub something aching and intangible from his skin, he tosses and turns for hours, unable to sleep. Charlie pretends not to notice as Roxy slips silently into Eggsy's bed, whispering words of comfort until he falls asleep spooned against her back.

\---

"God, Charlie, you're such an _arsehole!"_ Is the first thing Eggsy hears when enters the library that afternoon, and it almost makes him do an about-turn and find somewhere conflict free to spend his free time. But Roxy sounds truly aggravated and Eggsy is nothing if not _fucking saintly_ for this, so he wanders through the stacks until he finds the pair at a standoff. Roxy has her arms folded, her jaw set, and he doesn't know how Charlie hasn't melted into the floor from the truly murderous look in her eyes. Charlie, to his credit, is holding that gaze, but Eggsy can see the way his jaw is working as he tries not to break.  
"Why's he an arsehole, Rox?" Eggsy says, coming to stand beside her. "I mean, aside from the obvious, of course."  
"He took my Russian language book and hid it, and now he's saying its some sort of Kingsman trial!"  
The barest of smirks on Charlie's face tells Eggsy that it's a prank, and he can't help but feel like an exasperated teacher dealing with two unruly children.  
"Rox," Eggsy leans down to whisper in her ear. "Charlie has the exact same book under his bed, and he'll fuckin hate it if you write all over it."  
Her face lights up at this newfound plan, and she bounces off towards the dorm, throwing Charlie an evil glare before she rounds the corner. Eggsy turns back to him, smirking.  
"So, whaddaya say, Charlie boy? Tell me where the book is and I'll let you blow me?" He makes a lewd gesture as Charlie's eyebrows shoot into his hairline.  
"Look, I have no interest in you exchanging sex for goods and services." He says, shocked. "I may be an arsehole, as you say, but I still have morals."  
"Oh, fuck off wiv that bullshit, mate." Eggsy snorts. "I want you to fuck me, I was just tryna give you an excuse. I can't stand you most of the time, but you're alright to look at and I could do wiv a shag so..."  
There's a long pause in which the two just look at each other, Eggsy with an enticing eyebrow raised and Charlie's mind racing. Then something in Charlie's resolve suddenly breaks.  
"Yeah, okay," He says, breathless, and then he's moving closer, reaching out to fumble at the button on the other man's jeans.

Two days after that, three of them are tied to traintracks and one of them goes home. Eggsy is sort of sad to see Charlie go, if he's honest. Charlie was a bit of a wanker, but when all was said and done, he wasn't _pure_ evil.

By the time Eggsy stands in front of Merlin, hearing the words _Congratulations, you have reached the final stage of the testing process_ , seven months have passed since Harry Hart and his fucking umbrella waltzed into Eggsy's life. As he wanders about Harry's study, pointing at news articles with a cheeky grin, he thinks of his mum. He thinks of the baby. He thinks of the life he could give them, if he can just make it past this final stretch. That’s his motivation, has always been his motivation, and he can’t help but think it gives him an edge over the other candidates, who've had everything spoon fed to them their entire lives. Eggsy’s used to fighting, used to adapting, used to _surviving_. He's a chameleon in a world of Komodo dragons. And then all of it, all of his training and struggling and the sheer fucking horror of the shit he’s had to do to keep going, it all comes to a head in the most spectacular way.

Valentine kills Harry Hart, and then Eggsy kills Arthur (Sort of. He's not quite sure where he stands on that subject, technically) and then Eggsy _and_ Merlin kill most of the world leaders, and then half the world try to kill each other. It's a bad 24 hours, if he's being honest. He does get to wear a fancy suit, and get propositioned by a Swedish princess, which is very flattering even if he does end up turning her down. Instead they drink champagne and swap stories (Eggsy cries a bit and fuck if _that_ isn't embarrassing) but Princess Tilde is pretty good about the whole thing. Merlin gives her a ride home in the jet and she kisses them both on the cheek before she descends the steps, forcing a promise from Eggsy that he'll keep in touch. Merlin raises his eyebrows but Eggsy doesn't correct him. He doesn't want to know what Merlin's thinking any more than Merlin probably wants to share it. They stop on the way back to get Roxy, who's in a pub in the middle of nowhere, hustling men twice her size at pool for the fun of it. When she sees them, she holds her arms out for a hug, and Eggsy grabs her around the middle and swings her around, pressing his face into her neck. He closes his eyes. She smells like lavender and gunpowder, and the sharp scent of fresh air. After a moment, she pulls away and says, with a wistful kind of smile on her face, _Time to go home, Eggsy_. So they do.


End file.
